scholarly journals Multifactorial Activation of NLRP3 Inflammasome: Relevance for a Precision Approach to Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk and Disease

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 4459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Baragetti ◽  
Alberico Luigi Catapano ◽  
Paolo Magni

Chronic low-grade inflammation, through the specific activation of the NACHT leucine-rich repeat- and PYD-containing (NLRP)3 inflammasome-interleukin (IL)-1β pathway, is an important contributor to the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), being triggered by intracellular cholesterol accumulation within cells. Within this pathological context, this complex pathway is activated by a number of factors, such as unhealthy nutrition, altered gut and oral microbiota, and elevated cholesterol itself. Moreover, evidence from autoinflammatory diseases, like psoriasis and others, which are also associated with higher cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, suggests that variants of NLRP3 pathway-related genes (like NLRP3 itself, caspase recruitment domain-containing protein (CARD)8, caspase-1 and IL-1β) may carry gain-of-function mutations leading, in some individuals, to a constitutive pro-inflammatory pattern. Indeed, some reports have recently associated the presence of specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on such genes with greater ASCVD prevalence. Based on these observations, a potential effective strategy in this context may be the identification of carriers of these NLRP3-related SNPs, to generate a genomic score, potentially useful for a better CVD risk prediction, and, possibly, for personalized therapeutic approaches targeted to the NLRP3-IL-1β pathway.

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Arnold ◽  
Katharina Lechner ◽  
Christoph Waldeyer ◽  
Michael D Shapiro ◽  
Wolfgang Koenig

Despite considerable advances in reducing the global burden of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease by targeting conventional risk factors, significant residual risk remains, with low-grade inflammation being one of the strongest risk modifiers. Inflammatory processes within the arterial wall or systemic circulation, which are driven in a large part by modified lipoproteins but subsequently trigger a hypercoagulable state, are a hallmark of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and, in particular, its clinical complications. Extending conventional guideline-based clinical risk stratification algorithms by adding biomarkers of inflammation may refine phenotypic screening, improve risk stratification and guide treatment eligibility in cardiovascular disease prevention. The integration of interventions aimed at lowering the inflammatory burden, alone or in combination with aggressive lipid-modifying or even antithrombotic agents, for those at high cardiovascular risk may hold the potential to reduce the still substantial burden of cardiometabolic disease. This review provides perspectives on future clinical research in atherosclerosis addressing the tight interplay between inflammation, lipid metabolism and thrombosis, and its translation into clinical practice.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 1719-1734 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. C. L. van den Munckhof ◽  
A. Kurilshikov ◽  
R. ter Horst ◽  
N. P. Riksen ◽  
L. A. B. Joosten ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 215013272098095
Author(s):  
Marwa S. Said ◽  
Inas T. El Sayed ◽  
Eman E. Ibrahim ◽  
Ghada M. Khafagy

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most leading cause of mortality worldwide. Changes in diet can reduce subclinical cardiac injury and inflammation in parallel with reductions of other CVD risk factors. Aim: The study aimed to evaluate the beneficial effect of the DASH diet versus usual healthy dietary advice (HDA) on the estimated risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Methods: It was a prospective interventional nonrandomized controlled study, conducted on 92 participants attending Family Medicine Outpatient Clinics, Cairo University. The participants were assigned to 2 dietary groups, the DASH and HDA groups, for 12 weeks. All subjects were subjected to anthropometric measurement, assessment of lipid profile, and the estimated cardiovascular risk pre-and post-intervention. Results: The estimated cardiovascular risk was reduced significantly in both the DASH and HDA groups, with no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups regarding the risk reduction. By comparing the percent change between pre and post-intervention in both DASH and HDA groups, the following are the results: BMI dropped by 6.5% versus 2.5%, systolic blood pressure decreased by 6.9% and 4.1%, fasting blood sugar dropped by 5.5% and 3.1%, total cholesterol dropped by 5.2% and 3.1%, LDL dropped by 8.2%, and 3.1%, and HDL increased by 8.2% and 2.4%, in DASH and HDA groups, respectively. Conclusion: Both the DASH diet and HDA are associated with improvement in CVD risk factors. Although better risk factors decline with the DASH diet, there was no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups.


Circulation ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 130 (suppl_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi Niijima ◽  
Michiaki Nagai ◽  
Satoshi Hoshide ◽  
Mami Takahashi ◽  
Masahisa Shimpo ◽  
...  

Background: Recently, several studies have reported that long sleep duration was independently associated with increased aortic stiffness. On the other hand, high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) was associated with increased aortic stiffness. In this study, the relationships among self-reported sleep duration, hs-CRP and pulse wave velocity (PWV) were investigated in the Japanese at high-risk of cardiovascular disease. In addition, we investigated whether antihypertensive treatment moderated these relationships or not. Methods: Among 4310 patients with one or more cardiovascular risks recruited for the Japan Morning Surge-Home Blood Pressure Study, brachial-ankle PWV and hs-CRP measurement were performed in the 2304 patients (64.7 years old, male 49.6%). A self-administered questionnaire included items on daily sleep duration was used. Results: According to the sleep duration (6h or less,6h to 8h,8h or more per night), significant associations of sleep duration were observed with PWV (1594 vs 1644 vs 1763 cm/s, p<0.0001).In the multiple regression analysis adjustment for confounders including age body mass index, total cholesterol, HbA1c and clinic systolic blood pressure (SBP), long sleep duration (8h or more per night) (B: 29, 95%CI: 1.0-56, p<0.05) and log hs-CRP (B: 25, 95%CI: 3.1-48, p<0.05) were significantly positively associated with PWV. A significant interaction was found between long sleep duration and antihypertensive agent non-use for PWV (p<0.05). Especially, in the group without calcium channel blockers (CCBs), long sleep duration was significantly associated with PWV (p<0.01), while a marginal significant synergetic relationship was observed between long sleep duration and log hs-CRP for PWV (p=0.07). On the other hand, there were no significant interactions between long sleep duration and angiotensin receptor blockers non-use. Conclusions: Long sleep duration and hs-CRP were significant indicators of increased PVW in the high-risk Japanese population. In those without CCBs, long sleep duration served as a strong determinant for arterial stiffness, marginally interacted by low-grade inflammation. CCBs use might be important not to aggravate artery remodeling caused by long sleep duration.


2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 1163-1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kreton Mavromatis ◽  
Konstantinos Aznaouridis ◽  
Ibhar Al Mheid ◽  
Emir Veledar ◽  
Saurabh Dhawan ◽  
...  

Vascular injury mobilizes bone marrow–derived proangiogenic cells into the circulation, where these cells can facilitate vascular repair and new vessel formation. We sought to determine the relationship between a new biomarker of circulating bone marrow–derived proangiogenic cell activity, the presence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors, and clinical outcomes. Circulating proangiogenic cell activity was estimated using a reproducible angiogenic colony-forming unit (CFU-A) assay in 532 clinically stable subjects aged 20 to 90 years and ranging in the CVD risk spectrum from those who are healthy without risk factors to those with active CVD. CFU-A counts increased with the burden of CVD risk factors ( p < 0.001). CFU-A counts were higher in subjects with symptomatic CVD than in those without ( p < 0.001). During follow-up of 232 subjects with CVD, CFU-A counts were higher in those with death, myocardial infarction, or stroke than in those without (110 [70–173] vs 84 [51–136], p = 0.01). Therefore, we conclude that circulating proangiogenic cell activity, as estimated by CFU-A counts, increases with CVD risk factor burden and in the presence of established CVD. Furthermore, higher circulating proangiogenic cell activity is associated with worse clinical outcome in those with CVD.


2021 ◽  
pp. ASN.2020060856
Author(s):  
Yu Xu ◽  
Mian Li ◽  
Guijun Qin ◽  
Jieli Lu ◽  
Li Yan ◽  
...  

BackgroundThe Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) clinical practice guideline used eGFR and urinary albumin-creatinine ratio (ACR) to categorize risks for CKD prognosis. The utility of KDIGO’s stratification of major CVD risks and predictive ability beyond traditional CVD risk prediction scores are unknown.MethodsTo evaluate CVD risks on the basis of ACR and eGFR (individually, together, and in combination using the KDIGO risk categories) and with the atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) score, we studied 115,366 participants in the China Cardiometabolic Disease and Cancer Cohort study. Participants (aged ≥40 years and without a history of cardiovascular disease) were examined prospectively for major CVD events, including nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, and cardiovascular death.ResultsDuring 415,111 person-years of follow-up, 2866 major CVD events occurred. Incidence rates and multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios of CVD events increased significantly across the KDIGO risk categories in ASCVD risk strata (all P values for log-rank test and most P values for trend in Cox regression analysis <0.01). Increases in c statistic for CVD risk prediction were 0.01 (0.01 to 0.02) in the overall study population and 0.03 (0.01 to 0.04) in participants with diabetes, after adding eGFR and log(ACR) to a model including the ASCVD risk score. In addition, adding eGFR and log(ACR) to a model with the ASCVD score resulted in significantly improved reclassification of CVD risks (net reclassification improvements, 4.78%; 95% confidence interval, 3.03% to 6.41%).ConclusionsUrinary ACR and eGFR (individually, together, and in combination using KDIGO risk categories) may be important nontraditional risk factors in stratifying and predicting major CVD events in the Chinese population.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Boateng ◽  
Ina Danquah ◽  
Rihlat Said-Mohamed ◽  
Liam Smeeth ◽  
Mary Nicolaou ◽  
...  

AbstractEarly-life environmental and nutritional exposures are considered to contribute to the differences in cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden. Among sub-Saharan African populations, the association between markers of early-life exposures such as leg length and sitting height and CVD risk is yet to be investigated. This study assessed the association between leg length, sitting height, and estimated 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk among Ghanaian-born populations in Europe and Ghana. We constructed sex-specific quintiles for sitting height and leg length for 3250 participants aged 40–70 years (mean age 52 years; men 39.6%; women 60.4%) in the cross-sectional multicenter Research on Diabetes and Obesity among African Migrants study. Ten-year risk of ASCVD was estimated using the Pooled Cohort Equations; risk ≥7.5% was defined as “elevated” CVD risk. Prevalence ratios (PR) were estimated to determine the associations between sitting height, leg length, and estimated 10-year ASCVD risk. For both men and women, mean sitting height and leg length were highest in Europe and lowest in rural Ghana. Sitting height was inversely associated with 10-year ASCVD risk among all women (PR for 1 standard deviation increase of sitting height: 0.75; 95% confidence interval: 0.67, 0.85). Among men, an inverse association between sitting height and 10-year ASCVD risk was significant on adjustment for study site, adult, and parental education but attenuated when further adjusted for height. No association was found between leg length and estimated 10-year ASCVD risk. Early-life and childhood exposures that influence sitting height could be the important determinants of ASCVD risk in this adult population.


Diabetologia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn C. G. J. Brouwers ◽  
Nynke Simons ◽  
Coen D. A. Stehouwer ◽  
Aaron Isaacs

Abstract Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is highly prevalent among individuals with type 2 diabetes. Although epidemiological studies have shown that NAFLD is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), it remains unknown whether NAFLD is an active contributor or an innocent bystander. Plasma lipids, low-grade inflammation, impaired fibrinolysis and hepatokines are potential mediators of the relationship between NAFLD and CVD. The Mendelian randomisation approach can help to make causal inferences. Studies that used common variants in PNPLA3, TM6SF2 and GCKR as instruments to investigate the relationship between NAFLD and coronary artery disease (CAD) have reported contrasting results. Variants in PNPLA3 and TM6SF2 were found to protect against CAD, whereas variants in GCKR were positively associated with CAD. Since all three genes have been associated with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, the second stage of NAFLD, the question of whether low-grade inflammation is an important mediator of the relationship between NAFLD and CAD arises. In contrast, the differential effects of these genes on plasma lipids (i.e. lipid-lowering for PNPLA3 and TM6SF2, and lipid-raising for GCKR) strongly suggest that plasma lipids account for their differential effects on CAD risk. This concept has recently been confirmed in an extended set of 12 NAFLD susceptibility genes. From these studies it appears that plasma lipids are an important mediator between NAFLD and CVD risk. These findings have important clinical implications, particularly for the design of anti-NAFLD drugs that also affect lipid metabolism.


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